Leveraging Wikipedia to Create a Comprehensive Science & Technology Encyclopedia

The Department of Energy, particularly through the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), provides access to high quality scientific and technical content to scientists, researchers, and the public through a number of science portals. Despite this service, thousands of additional information sources are hard to identify and access; yet, the availability of such sources would lead to an acceleration of scientific discovery. This project will develop a software application aimed at building a large clearinghouse or repository of detailed information about science sources. This repository will enable quick identification and access to the most comprehensive list of scientific information sources anywhere. Phase I built a set of capabilities that support the easy integration of complementary content into search results and demonstrated the feasibility of building a large-scale clearinghouse and repository of science sources. Phase II will build a repository that will enable the science community to query and find the most relevant information sources available anywhere. In addition to containing detailed metadata about each information source, the repository also will contain performance and rating information about each source. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The technology should enable the search of thousands of information sources simultaneously, paving the way for the creation of a marketplace for information sources. This marketplace would greatly extend the volume of quality science available to researchers and the public.